He held his breath until the dog swallowed, didn’t keel over, and the array of noises died away.
‘Thank God for that,’ he breathed, picking up his mug of tea and grinning at the dog, who stared back at him, licking thoughtfully at its lips.
The grin faded, and Sebastian took a deep breath. It was difficult to know how to rate the comparative impact, the effect it would have. As far as a housekeeper was concerned, how bad would it be to have an earl kill her dog within twenty-four hours of her arrival? Would it be a lesser offence than having an aged earl with a dodgy ticker dying on her in flagrante delicto?
Sebastian shook his head. If only his father had managed to display a bit more in the way of self-control, or at least have had himself given the all-clear by a doctor, none of this need have happened.
Had it been a shock to learn how his father had died, or to discover why there was a sudden need for a substitute housekeeper? However hard his mother had tried to cover up the discord in her marriage and hide the kind of person his father actually was, Sebastian wasn’t an idiot. No, it hadn’t come as a shock.
Instead, the news had come in the form of a sledgehammer and had set about destroying the life he wanted to live, all over again.
Chapter 5
After Jess had dealt with breakfast, and with Digby securely attached to his lead this time, she set off in the direction of the gamekeeper’s cottage. Her visit to the attics with Mrs Keel had revealed the need for another bucket to add to the collection up there, and apparently Robbie – or Robert, as Mrs Keel had referred to him – was likely to have one going spare.
Mercifully this morning the rain clouds and fog of the previous twenty-four hours had made themselves scarce and instead weak sunshine lit the imposing granite of the castle walls. The place almost looked attractive.
In the daylight, Jess also spotted a pathway which led from the castle in the direction of the cottage she’d stumbled across the previous evening. Set between box hedging, the granite pavers were far kinder to the state of her shoes than the muddy route she’d taken before. The path opened out onto an area of tarmac, separated from the castle by shoulder-high laurel hedges, and across which Jess assumed was the front door of the keeper’s cottage. Low profile and whitewashed, the building looked like every archetypal Scottish cottage she’d seen on TV. Although the romantic Victorian crofter vibe was rather compromised by the muddy four-by-four parked outside.
As she knocked on the door, it occurred to her that Robbie might not even be here – he was probably out doing whatever it was gamekeepers did all day. Then his dogs began to bark from their kennels in the back garden and as she bent down to hush Digby a bolt was drawn on the door and it creaked open.
‘Sorry about the squeaky hinges,’ Robbie said as she straightened. ‘Most folks come round the back.’
In the fresh light of morning, Jess did a double take as Robbie’s features crinkled into a smile. She’d been right about his age, she thought – he was somewhere close to forty. He was also tall, lean and far more attractive than she’d realised in the gloom of the fog. Jess swallowed. It had been a while since she’d had such an undeniably strong reaction to a man.
‘Mrs Keel suggested I should come,’ Jess said to the gamekeeper.
‘In that case,’ he said, his grin broadening as he held the door wide.
She glanced at Digby.
‘Aye, he can come in, too,’ Robbie said, ushering them inside and closing the door. ‘Just don’t be telling my gang out back – they’re only allowed inside on very special occasions.’
‘Did you hear that?’ Jess said to Digby, praying he didn’t embarrass himself while they were inside the cottage. ‘Behave yourself, yes?’ she added, pointedly.
In the kitchen, Robbie clicked on the kettle while Jess took in her surroundings. This place was the absolute antithesis of the castle: small, with ceilings low enough for Robbie to be acutely aware of where every beam was, and cosy, with deep-silled windows filled with nick-nacks. The small kitchen table had a mismatched quartet of chairs around it, a pair of easy chairs covered in colourful throws stood in front of the Rayburn, and there was evidence of Robbie’s role on the estate everywhere she looked. Dog leads hung from an upright beam beside what Jess assumed was the back door, photos of groups of men dressed in tweed and Barbour jackets hung on the wall, and a collection of rosettes and cups were set haphazardly on a shelf.
She turned to some of the little silver cups. ‘What are these for?’ Her curiosity was piqued, by more than the items she was staring at.
‘Those are for clay-pigeon competitions.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t know anything much about that, except somebody shouts “pull” and clay discs fly up into the air.’
‘You’ve pretty much nailed it,’ Robbie said. ‘The more you hit, the better you do. Not much more to it than that.’
‘And how many do you have to hit in order to win?’ Jess said.
‘All of them,’ he replied, as though that level of accuracy was nothing special. Jess doubted she’d be able to hit a barn door, even if she was stood directly in front of it.
‘Is tea OK for you?’ he added.
‘Tea’s lovely, thanks – but I only popped in for a random request. Mrs Keel said I should ask you for a bucket.’
‘A bucket?’ His smile was now edged by a deliciously quizzical look. Then his eyebrows arched. ‘Oh. Another one for the roof?’
‘You know about the roof?’
Robbie laughed. ‘I think the only ones who don’t know about the state of the castle roof are the people living there.’
